 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Aloha. I'm Roger Jelenek, host of Think Tech Book Worlds, and my guest today is Richard Tillison. He's on a member of the board of the Hawaii Book of Music Festival. He has been working with the festival literally all 13 years. This is our 13th year. Welcome Richard. Thank you. He's had a really bird's eye and ground's eye view of the festival as it's evolved. He's also a real live author with a couple of excellent novels. And we're going to talk about this year's festival, which is just around the corner, on May the 5th and 6th at Honolulu Halle. So let's go. All right. All right. You start. Actually, I guess I want to start by saying congratulations. As you just said, I have worked on the festival for all 13 of them. And I have an idea of what it takes to put one on, how much work it takes all year. And I really think we say each year this is the best ever. What it really is could be in terms of content that you have put together, the best we've ever had. Well, I appreciate that. It's interesting because it's doing more with less in a sense. We have some outstanding speakers, keynotes from the mainland. One Pulitzer Prize, two Pulitzer Prize winners. Two Pulitzer Prize winners. International Book Award winner. International Book Award winner. And some other number one New York Times bestselling writers. I'll just run through them. These are the ones we feature in the admission auditorium, which is the indoor auditorium. When we started, by the way, we never used it for that. But now that's the only indoor venue that we have. And it holds about 350 people, which is just right for major speakers. The very first one on Saturday morning is Jennifer Allen, who has written sort of the authorised book about the Hockalaya voyage, which has phenomenal photography by John Bilderbach. John lives on the North Shore. Jennifer Allen lives in Los Angeles. She's the daughter of a famous football coach, George Allen. And they spent a great deal of time over three years writing and photographing the voyage. They'll be accompanied by Ninoa Thompson. And Ninoa's wife, who's Kathy Muneno, who's a TV reporter, will do the introductions. And that should be a really terrific event. That kicks off the program. That'll be very popular. Yes. There'll probably be a line for that. I hope so. Yes. Then we have Bill Finnegan, who, William Finnegan, who... There'll be a line for him too. Yes. He got a Pulitzer for his Barbarian Days, which is a life of surfing. He's actually an extremely well-established prize-winning political reporter, a foreign correspondent for The New Yorker, an excellent writer. But his passion is surfing, which is probably why he agreed to come. We have Adam Johnson. And actually, I've met Adam Johnson because... That's right. I think you introduced him. I introduced him when he was at the festival a couple of years ago. And a wonderful guy. He is so personable and generous in terms of answering questions. And since we had him a couple of years ago for The Orphan Master's Son, which won the Pulitzer that year, since then he's published a new book, which is a National Book Award winner. But I think he told us, or maybe he told you, that people, especially given what's going on, is that people just keep asking him about North Korea. So he's willing to talk about that again. Essentially, why would you go to hear a novelist talk about a political situation? But if you read the book, you understand that there are things novelists know or learn or can communicate that you can't get in reportage. Historians and journalists aren't allowed to report on what they think their subjects think. A novelist is perfectly free to do that. And so you get at least an imagined world that is probably very close or as close as anyone can get to what's going on in North Korea. It's a fascinating book. We have a romance writer. We've never had one before, really a big time one. Julia Quinn, who actually graduated from Harvard, which she proudly says just to snub everyone else. She's in the romance writer's Hall of Fame. There are only 16 of those. She's sold her books in all over the world in millions of copies. New York Times number one, New York Times bestseller. She seems to put out about four books a year. And she's very personable. We have a YA writer named Nicola Yoon, who comes originally from Brooklyn but now lives in Los Angeles. She's a YA novelist. She wrote a book called Everything, Everything, which has became a major motion picture last year. And she's written another book called Everywhere, Everywhere. She likes those kinds of titles, which is also being made into a major motion picture. And she's quite young and makes every other writer jealous. Yes, her sales must be. No, but she's really good. So those are some, another quite different kind of program we have in the Emissionalatorium is a play written by Moses Goods and acted by Moses Goods. That looked really interesting. Very interesting. I wasn't aware of that historical figure. Yes. It's a play about the Hawaiian who went back to the East Coast in order to get the missioners to send people here. It's something like 1807 or something. Yes, very early on. And so Moses was commissioned by the Mission Houses Museum to write this play. And then there'll be a panel afterwards with a couple of people who actually know a great deal about the subject, you know. So that's a good deal of that program. We have 10 venues. I'm not sure I can at this point remember. Remember them all? Remember them all. But we have two offer venues. They have a lot of panels this year. We're finding that panels work particularly well in the festival setting because they're very interactive. We insist that at least 20 minutes of every hour is dedicated to Q&A. And let me talk about the venues a little bit because one of the things that I make, I think makes our Hawaii Book and Music Festival different than any other that I know of is the way it occurs, the actual place and manner in which it occurs, which is on the grounds of Honolulu Halle, this beautiful park, and the venues themselves, with the exception of the Mission Memorial Auditorium, which is enclosed, all the others are out in the open air. And there are tents for shelter from the sun or if it should sprinkle. But the sides are all open. So it is very, very easy to just wander about and to drop in and to have a look. You don't have to, how to put it, enter a classroom and make your way down between the aisles and sit down and then you're committed. And after 10 minutes, you may say, this is not my cup of tea, but it's embarrassing to get up and tiptoe out. But it's sort of this festival to say is a taster's dream because you may say, well, perhaps someone might say, I'm not that interested in Buddhism, I didn't think, but they're having this special pavilion. It's all about Buddhism, and maybe I'll drop in and give it a listen. That one was standing remotely. Standing remotely, and there you are. Many, many people who are fascinated about this subject. And something new that I think will appeal to people, I mean, for years, we've had a wonderful emphasis on Keiki. We've had wonderful children's book authors and readings and events, including bouncers and carnival rides for the kids. So we've always been covered off very, very well on the younger end of the spectrum, especially with Mr. Steve from PBS. However, in the last, I think this year, last year, HMSA has sponsored a pavilion on wellness in Hawaii, which is especially appealing to, I think, the older people in the community. And there are all kinds of topics there that... They're a really hot button. Yeah, and really excellent speakers. Right. And they range from homelessness as a medical problem, because of the economics of homelessness, as well as the psychology of homelessness. Right. We have one on the opioid crisis. A curious one that was exceptionally popular in the last two years is called dying well, because a lot of people apparently are really interested in dying well. Are you having people who died well come back and tell us how to do it? Yes, of course. No, we only speak to them. It's a table tapping. No. But actually, one of the key people in that program, who's also in the mission auditorium, we were really lucky to get, is John Kabat-Zinn. John Kabat-Zinn is the man who's almost single-handedly made mindfulness a worldwide fascination. And he published a huge book on it, which is now being split into four books. And the first one is being launched at the festival. And then the others are being published through the year. But he's a particularly articulate man. He started out as a Buddhist, but he's actually not a religious person, really. And we expect... I've just today got a rather cross-email from someone who said, I want to bring 400 people to hear Dr. Kabat-Zinn, but I can't make head or tails of your website. So I had to teach him how to use the website. And we should talk about the website, because it is phenomenal. Well, the website is brand new this year, at least in its most important aspect, and that is the schedule, where you find out what's happening when. And I was just looking at it this morning, because I think you're still populating it with some things that have just come in. But if you go to the homepage, you'll see right up there one of the horizontal menu schedule, and you click on that, and the schedule will appear, and you can see it by several different filters. You can see it by a grid, which is how I prefer to look at it, and all the events at the same time. Or you can see it by different categories. They're color-coded. And they're color-coded. So it's very easy to scan through and see what you're really... If there's a particular thing you're looking for, you've heard that this particular author, or this particular musician, or this particular Hula Halao is performing at such and such a time, you can scan through just for that. And once you've found it, if you should be on your phone, because this is mobile enabled, you can then just tap that, and it will populate your calendar on your phone, and then you can put on a reminder for yourself. And then you can also email your itinerary to your friends or go direct to Facebook. So it's a very powerful tool. I know one of the things I think we're proudest of at the festival is that we have a tremendous number, in fact a great proportion of our visitors now, are repeat visitors. They are so fond of the event. They've come back year after year after year. And for them, this will be a new tool. And it will take a little while to figure out how best to use it. I think a lot of us will still be wedded to the print version which will still be available. Which we are providing. I've just finished today. It will still be available, and you can get it right there as soon as you come in. But you can also now have access to it right on your phone. And especially for people who, for whom our phones are part of ours. I'll give you a couple of examples of how magical it is. This man who wanted to know about when was John Kabat-Zinn going to be available. So I literally just put keyed in John Kabat-Zinn in one space. And immediately his whole, all the events that John Kabat-Zinn appeared. And I could check each one off. Oh, that's brilliant. And then create an itinerary for myself. So I would know exactly when he was. You can stalk him about the ground. And then I emailed it to the man. Oh, excellent. Yes. So, you know, another example. We have a videographer and a photographer who can be there. And they have different itineraries. And usually it's a headache to brief them and guide them around and so on. This time, I could look at the whole schedule and I say, okay, for the videographer only two per hour, which two am I going to choose? I could tell instantly which two. Check them all off, click, email them to him. And he knows what to do. Excellent. Yeah, that's great. You know, there's something else that's, it's not quite new. We've had poetry before, but I was interested just personally in the depth of the poetry that we have this year. Yes, we have a big focus this year. And talk a little bit more about Mr. Zapruder. It was written a book called Why Poetry? Yes. He's Matthew Zapruder. He's actually the son of the, the Kennedy assassinations of Pruder. But that's not why he's a poet. Maybe it is why. Who knows? But he wrote a book called Why Poetry? And it's on the question of why, does poetry need to be inaccessible? Because I think a lot of people have put off by it. Myself included. When you see somebody famous in the news. I'll give you a list. No. You see somebody by some very famous, somebody by some very famous poet in the New Yorker and you read it and you read it and you read it and you cannot, I cannot make him understand why and I give up. But the point is that there are many different kinds of poetry. So we have a poet here, Ron Kortge, I think his name is, who Billy Collins says is the funniest poet in that. And he's totally. And Billy Collins. He knows. Every book he wrote. Yes. So that's a great endorsement. We have another poet, Margot Bernaschevsky, who used to live on Maui, who I find totally inaccessible. But she's gotten quite famous and got all sorts of prizes and is published internationally. And she's coming here from the Los Angeles Festival of Books, which is this past weekend. Right. And then there are several local poets. Roger, you and I are our book people. So that's what we're talking about. But we should also, actually we should do a couple of things. I started with a festival first in the context of doing your advertising. So I think it's very important at some point in this interview that you or I say, first, the Hawaii Book and Music Festival is entirely free. Yes. No admission. And it has entirely free parking on the grounds of Honolulu Hale and that it occurs Saturday and Sunday, May 5th and 6th. I just wanted to make sure we got that out. The other thing we should now spend about half our time talking about, or at least a good portion of it, is the music because we've been talking about it. We're going to take a break and we'll come back to the music because we've got a lot to do about it. We'll do that. Okay. Thank you very much. Hawaii, raising public awareness. And just to repeat what we said just now, festival takes place on May 5th and 6th from 10 to 5 on the grounds of Honolulu Hale and this parking is free on the ground into small garages right next door. Get there early because they do run out of room and it's going to be terrific. I also just want to underline because I think it's really remarkable the value that you get or it's free. It doesn't cost anything and you've got literally world-famous authors. You've got incredible local authors. You've got incredible local musicians in Halaou and including this year a free concert by Jake Shimabukuro which is all by itself. It's an enormous value. All this is free. The concert is three to five. The first hour is the Pandanus Club which is Ken Makoakane's group. By the way, Ken Makoakane has just been elected Kahu of Kauaihau. He has all sorts of arrows to his bow or strings to his bow. The second one is Jake Shimabukuro which should be terrific. That's from four to five o'clock. On the main stage we have four major Halaou. We have Jeff Peterson. We have Ian O'Sullivan and a younger slack-key guitarist who teaches at Kamehameha. We have a singer-songwriter competition. We have a military band this time. The Banzai Brass Quintet. The Banzai Brass Quintet. Which will kick off the festival at 10 o'clock on Saturday. The Royal Hawaiian Band will kick it off on Sunday morning. So there's a lot of music going on. And Halaou as well? Halaou, yes. The particularly famous one is Mapuwan and the Silvers. She brings in probably 50 dancers. Another big dance event is Willow Chang is bringing about six different exotic dancers. A world dance. So there's a lot going on on that stage. The music and the Halaou are of course mainly Hawaiian and the festival has always had a dedicated Hawaiian culture venue. We probably do more Hawaiian culture in-depth for a general audience than anyone. And that's because of the immersion programs that produce a steady stream of young scholars who produce books that not that many people are going to read as books, but we're so wrong with panels. The one that especially interested me in that particular program was O.K. and Odomyre and I forgot the other ones. Aaron Sela. Aaron Sela are going to talk about translating the movie Moana into Hawaiian. And that should just be fascinating. The issues that they had to deal with in taking this Disney film and making it in the Hawaiian language, a Disney film which had Hawaiian characters to begin with, all kinds of interesting ways. That's an example of how the selection of these events could be quite serendipitous. I happened to be watching the Mary Monarch Festival on TV and Aaron Sela was interviewed about that by somebody on the TV station and I called him up immediately and said, come on over. So we also have a food cookbook, a really very different food venue. We've all had a food and wine festival where you pay, I don't know, two, three hundred dollars just to go through the door. But there's another strand of food in Hawaii that's very different. It's local, it's farm to table. The people who put it together is the Pilly Group and they did a terrific job last year and they're going to do one again. It's backed by Ulupono Initiative. So that gives you a sense of what the programming is. Amanda Corby noticed that in schools kids did not know anything about food, about where it comes from or how it's cooked. So it's part of her mission is to teach kids about local food and so we're doing that and we actually have a farm stand next to that venue. Oh, that'll be fun. And let's see what else we have. We've gone through the health. We have a book swap. That's the most popular venue of all. The line for that begins before the festival begins. For an hour before. It snakes down King Street. You can bring five gently used books and exchange them for five new books. Usually popular now. So that's a wonderful thing. And you're having a playwright's jam again this year. Two of them. Because I was in one a few years ago, which was a lot of fun. This is where three or four playwrights each time perform their own play or excerpts from their plays. So that's in the storytellers pavilion where we have storytellers. These are not storytellers for children. These are adult storytellers. Jeff Geir is the mainstay of that. And Kathy Collins from Maui has always been there. That's a fun venue. There's a publisher's village. Because there are booksellers. There are several booksellers this year. The biggest one, of course, is Barnes & Noble where all the national authors do their signings. All the solo authors have signings after their events. That's very popular. Right. You can buy a book, buy a Pulitzer Prize winner, and actually get it signed by that author. And talk to him. And talk to that author, Pulitzer Prize winner or National Book Award winner, or both. And you will immediately, at least double or triple the value of the book that you watch. We have a couple of prizes that we're giving away. It's open to everyone. One, two, nook glow lights have been given. They're worth $100 each, given by Barnes & Noble. We've introduced, we have an ohana, a book and musical ohana, which actually you invented. Yeah. The book and musical ohana, which is known as... The acronym stands as BAMO. And BAMO has got a big BAM coming this year. It's changed, and it's going to be something that we hope will be very popular, because the BAMO organization, the ohana, benefits the Hawaii Book and Music Festival. But this year we've managed to put together something so that the BAMO ohana will actually benefit the members and benefit them very significantly. Because this time with your basic membership, you'll get a little plastic card you can carry about in your wallet, and it will give you... It has a barcode on the back. It has a barcode, and different vendors all over Hawaii will be recognizing this. There's a list of them. I believe it's on the website. Yes. And also on the printed program when you come to the festival. And they're literally more than dozens and dozens. There must be a hundred or more. At least a hundred. And it'll get you things like discounts on coffee or a free scone when you buy a cup of coffee. There are a lot of restaurants. All kinds of restaurants will be honoring this. You know, when I was writing the copy for that and looking at their website, it's done by a company called DGNOW.org. And they're doing this nationally. It's a really brilliant idea. So it's a very tight, professionally put together program. And it's something beyond our capacity if it hadn't been that this is something you can access because it's been developed for other organizations. And it's been used by many organizations. But you can get this for one donation, basic membership to BAMO. $30. For $30, you can rapidly get the value of that back very quickly with just a couple of nights out at the restaurant. So you might be going to anyway. And I'll likely... As I was writing copy for it, I looked on their website to see where the benefits were. It was creating new benefits as I was looking at it. And this will happen through the year. That's right. The card is good for the entire year. So it's not just for the weekend of the festival. It's for 365 days. So it's a terrific value. Okay. We have just a minute left. So repeat again where it is. The Hawaii Book and Music Festival, the 13th year. Congratulations, Roger, for putting it together for all those years, really. And May 5th and 6th. May 5th and 6th on the grounds of Honolulu Hale, the Hawaii Book and Music Festival, free admission and free parking. Really don't miss it. I think it's the best one all that we've had for 13 years. And if that sounds familiar, it's because you've heard the public service announcement, the PSA, which is narrated and written by Richard. That is true. But it's really good. Don't miss it.